Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 March 1894 — ONE WITH THE OTHER [ARTICLE]

ONE WITH THE OTHER

PROTECTION AND OPPRESSION GO HAND IN HAND. IV» Unsafe for Worktarmeo la Protected ladaatrtee to Frprw Their Coavietione by Means of Petition* - MeKlatey’a Blunders—Cruelly Oppressive Taxes. Labor la Coerced. Thousands of petitions have been sent to Congress in favor of the Wilson bill and tens of thousands against it. After the elections of 1890 and 1892, this fact might seem strange to some. If so, it is because they do net understand the present economic situation. They do not realize to what extreme political manufacturers will go to prevent the loss of the pap that has nourished, or rather stimulated them. It takes unusual courage to enable factory employes to sign petitions which are not sanctioned by the bosses. Those who have gone among the “protected” workingmen and have met them in their homes and lodges, say that there are very few tariff reform backsliders, even during these hard times—falsely credited to the shadow of the Wilson bill. The workingmen, however, think it bad policy for them to sign tariff reform or free trade petitions, when such action will imperil their positions and bring hardship upon themselves and their families. Besides, they think it unnecessary. They voted twice for radical tariff reform and they now expect Congress to do what it was elected to do. If it does not, they are likely to cast about next fall for a new party that will keep its promises. Mr. B. F. Longstreet tells us, in the Courier of St. Louis, how protectionist oppression is applied in Worcester, Mass. On Jan. 3, Mr. Thomas F. Kennedy succeeded in having resolutions indorsing the Wilson bill adopted by the Central Labor Union of Worcester. These were the resolutions which Congressman J. H. Walker, of Worcester, refused to present to Congress and which were finally presented by Jerry Simpson of Kansas —a man not under the thumb of protected manufacturers, because Medicine Lodge, his home, is not a manufacturing center. Mr. Kennedy, who is a laster in one of the leading shoe houses of Worcester, and who is a sober, steady, intelligent and worthy workingman, expected to lose his poeltlop. His employers “laid for him, but they waited until February, when matters had cooled down, before discharging him. An old man, a war veteran, who was in the thickest of the anti-slavery fight in Kansas, feelling confident that he could secure hundreds of Petitions In his snop in lavor of the Wilson bill, as being “in the right direction,” he drew up a petition, but upon going to his work that morning he was surprised by the labored efforts of the men to keep out of his reach. Newspaper reports of his intention had anticipated his arrival at the shop that day, and late in the afternoon he found the explanation to be that the “boss” had passed the word among the men in this threatening injunction: “You had better keep away from that man with his develish heresies.” He is in daily expectation of his discharge. Mr. Longstreet, who has been active for radical tariff reform, says that he has been made to feel the pressure of protection to such an extent that he has sold out his business, and will leave Worcester to locate In a less protected and, therefore, more liberal city. It is really a serious matter for workingmen in protected industries to express their honest convictions: without the secret ballot, in most States in 1890 and 1892, it is not improbable that we would not know that their honest convictions were for tariff reduction.

McKinley Stumbles Over Himself. Sixty-five of Major McKinley’s speeches.and addresses have just been printed in one large volume, intended as bait to induce the next Republican nomination for the Presidency to come his way. Here are a few of the contradictions on the subject of "who pays tariff taxes" as they occur in McKinley's new book: What, then. Is the tariff? The tariff ... is a tax put upon goods made outside of the United states and brought into the United States for sale and consumption. ... If a man comes to our cities and wants to sell goods to our people on the street ... we say to him, “Sir, you must pay so much into the city treasury for the privilege of selling goods to our people here.” Now, why do we do that? We do it to protect our own merchants. Just so our government says to the countries of the old world . . • “If you want' to come in and sell to our people, and make money from our people, you must pay something for the privilege of doing it" . . . Now, that is the tariff (pp, 185, 186; Oct 29. 1885). We tell every man In America who w ants Scotland’s pig iron, if he thinks it is any better - and does not want the American pig iron—we tell him, if he must have the Scotch. “You must pay for the privilege. ” And in that way we maintain that great Industry (p. 188; Oct 29, 1885). Under this law (the McKinley bill) the (United States) Government cannot go abroad and buy what it can get at home without paying a duty. The result will be that the Government hereafter will buy more at home and less abroad—and It ought ta (Applause) (P. 511; April 10. 1891) They say “the tariff is a tax.” That is a captivating cry. So it is a tax; but whether it is burdensome upon the American people depends upon who pays it. If we pay it, why should the foreigners object? Why all these objections in England, France, Germany, Canada and Australia against the tariff law of 1890, if the American consumer bears the burdens, and if the tariff is only added to the foreign cost which the American consumer pays? If they pay it, then we do not pay It (n. 579; May 17, 1892). Last year we paid $55,000,000 out of our own pockets to protect whom? To protect the men in the United States who are producing just one-eighth of the amount of our consumption of sugar. Now we wipe that out, and it will cost us to pay the bounty just $7,000,000 every twelve months, which furnishes the same protection at very much less cost to the consumer. So we save $48,000,000 every year and leave that vast sum in the pockets of our own people. (Applause on the Republican side.) (P. 452; May 29, 1890.) Cruelly Oppressive Taxes. A tax on coal is clearly unnecesary and unjust. There was imported into the United States, in the fiscal year 1893, bituminous coal to the amount of 1,090,374 tons, on which a duty of 75 cents was paid, yielding $817,780. Of these imports, 999.677 tons were brought to the Pacific coast, and the tax of three-quarters of a million of dollars ($794,658) was an unnecessary and grossly unfair burden on the industries of that part of the country. The coal could not have been obtained from the fields of the United States. The sole effect of the tax was to prevent a certain amount of importation in the East, wfhere the tax is prohibitory. The case of the tax on iron ore is very similar. The imports of iron in 1893 were 677,302 tons, the tax was 75 cents per ton, equivalent to 42.7 per cent. Of this total, 651,660 tons were imported at Philadelphia and Baltimore alone. . The ore could not have been supplied

from west of the Alleghanies, for reasons which we have frequently stated, nor from the mines of the South. The tax on it was an unnecessary and unjust burden on industry. But, aa in the case of coal, the tax is prohibitory to extensive industries which would be profitable with untaxed material and are impossible with this tax. Clearly, there la no real protection and there is a great deal of most cruel oppression in any such duties. —N. Y. Times. Osnadlss Co*l and Annexattea. Senator Teller, who is a mild kind of a Protectionist, is in favor of the annexation of Canada to this country with as little delay as possible. But u Canada should be annexed, how could duties be levied upon Canadian lumber, coal, barley, hay, butter, and eggs? How could the farmers of New York, Ohio, and other States on the northern border be protected against a tremendous inundation of these products should trade be made free by political union? We earnestly beg Senator Teller to give consideration to this question. Trade takes no heed of political arrangements. Should Canada be annexed politically its products would compete just as keenly with the products of this country as if reciprocal free trade only should be established with the Dominion. We have no doubt that Senator Teller will assent to this proposition; and in such case he. as an annexationist, cannot regard free trade with Canada as a dangerous or even an undesirable thing. On the other hand, free trade with Canada would tend powerfully to the political end which ne seeks. He begins at the wrong end of the business. Free trade with Canada first, and annexation afterward. —Philadelphia Record. What’s the Matter with McKinley T Said Mr. McKinley to the Chicago Lincoln Club, referring to the present session of Congress: “It is a condition where the people's representatives are legislating against the interests and opinions of the people. * * * But what else could you expect? They are pledged to reduce the tariff.” Is the joke on Mr. McKinley or the people? It is certainly not on the Democratic party. We are inclined to the belief that Mr. McKinley has made himself the victim of his own satire. The fact that the Democrats are “pledged to reduce the tariff” carries with it the conclusion that they have become the “people’s representatives* because of that pledge. How then can they be legislating “against the interests and opinions of the people"? Either the people do not know what they want or Mr. McKinley does not know what he is talking about? We never look for logic in a Republican speech under any circumstances, but such palpable inconsistencies at a Chicago club banquet place the orator under suspicion of something besides insincerity.—St. Louis Republic. „

An Infamous Tax. The Ind anapolis News (Ind.) says, referring to the report that the Democratic Senators want to amend the Wilson bill by putting a tax > n coal: “We hope not. Those who believe the way to reform the tariff is to reform ft cannot do better than to make a stand right on this cot 1 tax. It is an infamous tax. It has no relation to wages. The man who claims it is in the interest of the miner is a hypocrite of the worst kind." The Chicago Herald (Item.) also says: “If the Finance Committee wish to make a proper response to this attempt to McKinleylze the Wilson bill they will leave coal where the House left it, on the free list.” Protection Does Lower Some Prices. The low prices of wool, wheat and cotton are mrgely the result of increased production in Australia, Argentina, India and Egypt. By its policy of discouraging reciprocal trade with the countries which are the great purchasers of wool, wheat and cotton the Government of the United States has done what it could to raise up competitors in the production of these great staples. The farmers who are now putting 30-cent wheat into elevators m the Western States, and accept-! ing way-down prices for their wool and cotton, are enjoying the fruits of thirty years of the protective policy.—Philadelphia Record. Mach to Gain* We have had no Wilson bill yet.' The country is still staggering under a higher tariff than that imposed during the war. A few months of actual experience under the Wilson bill will certainly satisfy the people that it is worth a much longer trial, and the> longer trial will satisfy them that they have nothing to lose but very much to gain by a still larger installment of commercial and industrial liberty.— Cayuga Chief. ! Must Be Moss-Covered. This is the way the Courier-Journal puts it: “Conservatives” is the new name for protectionists who have obtained seats in the United States Senate on the false pretense of being Democrats and who want to amend the Wilson bill to conform to their ideas. A man whose ideas are more conservative than the Wilson bill’s provisions must be covered with moss. A Pennsylvania Affair. The State of Pennsylvania voted against a reduction of the tariff in 1892. Its opinion on that particular point is not the least bit strengthened by emphasis. The present tariff law is peculiarly a Pennsylvania affair. TeUs It Tersely. The Herald of Albany, N. Y., expresses the desire of the bulk of the Democratic party when it says: “Give us a tariff bill sweetened with free, sugar, warmed with the heat of free, coal, and welded with tree iron." Push the Wilson BUI. Business still awaits action on the tariff, gentlemen of the Senate.—Boston Herald. A little Senatorial celerity would be a boon indeed to the people just now. —Boston Globe. It is the plain duty of the Senate to get right down to business and pass theWilson bill—Detroit Free Press. The people are watching the Senate,, and they want tariff reform, too, as quick as they can get it. —Memphis Ap-peal-Avalanche. The popularity of United States Senators will be in exact inverse ratio to the length of their speeches on thetariff.—Chicago Tribune. The Senate wants to hustle up thatWilson bill, and it does not want to inject any protectionism into it. The people have been waiting too long for. Democratic reform to be balked at this late day.—lndianapolis Sentinel The longbr the Deinocrats of the Finance Committee labor over the Wilson bill the store clear does it become that the best thing they can do is to report it to the Senate promptly and substantially as it came from the House. —Chicago Herald. The country wants the tariff settled right away, and to delay the passage of the House bill through the Senate one hour longer than is necessary for decent deliberation will be a crime, against the American people worse than that damaging delay that did somuch to discredit the Senate at th»> extra session.—Philadelphia Timea